Successful Cause Marketing Presentations: Use Your Nervousness

The nervousness you feel before speaking is normal, expected, and important. Nervousness is a key ingredient of an effective presentation. A lot of athletes, actors, and musicians would agree that a few butterflies are a good thing. They energize, motivate, and force you to focus. But tapping nervousness as a power source only works if those butterflies are flying in formation.

You can manage your nervousness in a number of ways. The key is to know what is making you so nervous so that you can address it! Here are a few tips for some common nerve triggers:

If you’re worried that you’re going to lose your train of thought, keep your speech on notecards near you.

If you’re afraid of being in front of a crowd, spend some time before your speech at the front of the room introducing yourself to audience members so that you can later focus on at a few friendly faces in the room.

If you’re concerned that you might look incompetent, be competent. Give your presentation extra time and attention beforehand and practice, practice, practice.

Also, comfort yourself knowing that while you may not know as much about cause marketing as you would like, your audience probably knows even less. After all, you are the expert!